Enabled by the Press

Regarding the debacle that Afghanistan has become, Ayaan Hirsi Ali raises a salient, and often overlooked point. How much of the responsibility falls on a sycophantic toadying press corps? Did the Biden team believe that the press would support them no matter what? Did they become more reckless because they knew that the press would have their back?

After all, the Washington press corps and the mainstream media and the tech monopolies believed that Trump could do no right and that Biden (and Obama) could do no wrong. Keep in mind, while social media companies continue to exclude the former president of the United States, and where Amazon web services shut out the Parler app, they had been hosting ISIS and the Taliban. Link here.

So, Hirsi Ali asks whether the Biden team had drunk too deeply of the unearned praise the press was heaving at them. Did they buy the hype and conclude that they could do no wrong? Did this belief make them feel invincible? Did it cause them to shut down their critical faculties?

Instead, seven months into the administration’s tenure, the Biden administration hunkered down and made a decision that would erase years of progress. It’s all too easy to picture the various individuals, all at the height of their professional careers, huddled together in the Situation Room. Some old and wise. Some fresh-faced and gung-ho. All fooled by the conviction that they can do no wrong.

As for why the Biden team had planned so poorly for the withdrawal and surrender, perhaps they assumed that, no matter what they did, the press would declare it a victory. Obviously, the suicide bombing of two days ago could not be blamed on Trump-- even though Biden certainly tried:

Speculation over what compelled Biden’s national security team to withdraw so suddenly without a proper contingency plan remains ongoing. Theories range from shrill claims about how “these men must be evil” to “experts” praising what they deem a calculated, realist approach to a never-ending war that was sapping attention and resources away from the bigger threats posed by China.

The more convincing argument, however, is more straightforward: The Biden administration screwed up because they had grown accustomed to uncritical support from the press. Instead of upholding their traditional role of checking and vetting individuals and decisions, for seven months the media has scarcely offered up a critical word of Biden. It was almost the exact opposite for Trump, who came in for relentless criticism — some of it fictitious.

Of course, nobody enjoys being hauled over the coals by the press corps. But it focuses the mind — unlike canine adulation. If enough people tell you that you’re going to be the most transformative president since Lyndon Johnson, it’s easy to forget how Johnson’s presidency ended.

That honeymoon period is over now. The situation in Kabul is now so dire that there is no option but to report on the failures of the administration. Even our new pedigree of activists journalists, for whom reporting is a form of proselytising, can no longer play defence for the President because the images coming out of Afghanistan are indefensible. When they learn that a toddler of one of our Afghan interpreters has been crushed to death in the vast and desperate scrum outside Kabul airport, Americans are rightly angry.

Will the press recover its sense of integrity? Or is it just too late? Unfortunately, it would require the press and the social media titans to accept some level of responsibility. One suspects that it is not about to happen.

For Afghanistan, the return of a critical press corps comes too late. But for Americans there is a lesson to be learned. Perhaps if the liberal media had done a better job during confirmation hearings and appointments, the situation in Afghanistan could have unfolded differently, with more effective leaders at the helm. Perhaps if earlier policy blunders had been subjected to closer scrutiny, this one might not have been so casually made.

But as we are now witnessing, competent government instead dies when the lights are dimmed to flatter a new administration. When journalists and editors suspend their critical faculties, tragedy is bound to follow.

An important point, well made.